Dozens of matchmaking services have come and gone, and most of them kind of suck. Now Play Us is a new contender that wants to simplify the process of finding people to play your favorite games with, whether you know them or not, and whether you want to play right now or later.

Now Play Us actually uses Twitter as its backbone. You sign up with Twitter, and once you've created an account you can connect your Xbox Live, Steam, PS3, Battle.net, or other account to the service. From there, click the events tab to see all of the scheduled gaming sessions available to join, their time/date, and the platform of choice. Click any one of them to join the player list, leave a comment, or tweet the event so more people will come play too.

You can just as easily create your own events on Now Play Us: just click the calendar icon in the toolbar to schedule a gaming session and put it on the calendar. You can even get notifications when other players join your game. It's easy, fast, and you can even add all events to your personal calendar. The service is brand new, so don't expect a ton of games to join just yet, but there's a good selection of events, and once you add your games and invite your friends, everyone benefits. Besides, it's better than just joining random pubs, right?